Nature has been my subject for a long time. In my early work I painted man-made objects. After emigrating to the United States from Japan in 1962 at the age of 18, I became fascinated by the abundance of consumer products, particularly machines. My work was influenced and stimulated by the Neo-Dadaist movement and Pop Art. I was painting realistic still-lifes of consumer objects, such as rusted automobile engines, electric drills, blenders, and lawn mowers, all sorts of machines that are extensions of man.
When I moved to Vermont, in 1975, I was re-acquainted with the kind of raw nature that I had experienced growing up in the countryside of Japan, full of wonderment at the creative power of nature's drama that surrounded me. My connection to nature is rooted in my childhood; its ever-changing phases, and its mystery, inside of me.
In Vermont I started to paint close-ups of grass, flowers, leaves and trees. Captivated by the primal aspect of nature, I wanted to express the evolution of man's existence through fossils, arrow heads, decaying leaves, the earth itself. In fact, I made a still-life painting in 1975 where a pile of earth appears for the first time surrounded by man-made objects. This was the beginning of an investigation that culminated in a series titled "Song of the Earth."
My recent work challenges the prevailing way we relate to nature, how we perceive nature's creations. Although I am not an environmentalist, nor an ecologically-oriented painter, I feel that the spiritual power which creates such a variety of forms, colors, shapes and space has to be acknowledged and expressed.
I am struck by how alienated from nature we have become. It is evident in the hostile way that weather forecasters treat nature's phenomena. They announce, for example, "I have bad news for you today, it's going to rain." This negative and superficial attitude is a protest that we are subject to nature's forces. It shows how disconnected we are from the fundamental fact that we live on this earth. Global warming and the destruction of the environment have become urgent issues, but our way of life continues to develop in opposition to the natural world.
My recent work is landscape nature painting. It is my attempt to bring nature as close as possible to the viewer. Often, because of this, my canvasses are large, in order for the viewer to be enveloped in the close-up of nature. These paintings have no particular heroes or center of attention. The subjects are ordinary plants, weeds, dead leaves, and moss. It's my way of giving voice to all living things.
In these paintings I give colors a more expressive power by making them fully saturated. Perhaps these saturated hues are symbolic of the fragility of human, and nature's, existence. The deep reds both reflect my philosophy, my outrage and deep emotions, and represent the event that shook America on 9/11, which I witnessed from my studio, very near to Ground Zero.
Leaves are emboldened with artificial colors, and the grass is like sharp blades, as if to cut, an element of violence. The branches are subtly disconnected, and what appears to be a whole tree or branch, turns out to be disjointed. It's a reminder that our relationship with nature has been broken.
All the images in these landscape paintings are taken from the Hudson River Valley, where I spend the summer. I go out to draw and document what I see, walking in the woods, and when something connects me to what I'm looking for, I draw it, and then it becomes part of my paintings. My work is a felt response to my deepest affinity, the silence of nature. It is my communion with the spirit that animates all living things.
